Research

Research Briefs

Five pillars of research exploring how design practice is evolving and what AI-native creative work looks like.

The Canvas War — Code and Design Collide on One Surface

The question that defined design for a decade — 'what tool do you use?' — just became existential. Figma is pulling code onto the canvas. Cursor, now worth $60 billion, is pulling design into the editor. They are aimed directly at each other, and there is no version of the future where the old separation survives.

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The May 20 Convergence — The Day Design Died Twice

On May 20, 2026, design died twice within hours. Meta deleted its content designers. Figma deleted the need for them. This wasn't coincidence — it was convergence.

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The Death & Rebirth of Designer

The designer, as a professional identity, died somewhere between 2024 and 2025. What's emerging from the wreckage is something far more interesting.

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New Archetypes of the AI-Native Designer

The designer role is not evolving—it is bifurcating. Five distinct archetypes are emerging, each with unique skills and career trajectories.

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New Skills, Traits & Competencies

Tool execution dies. Judgment survives. The designer's last competitive edge is no longer the ability to push pixels—it's the ability to recognize what matters.

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New Tools, Workflows & Strategies

The designer's job is no longer to move pixels. It's to orchestrate intent through AI agents, making strategic bets on which outputs deserve refinement and which deserve deletion.

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The Designless Horizon — Expression Infrastructure

In five years, the term 'UI designer' won't mean someone who designs interfaces. It will mean someone who designs the rules, constraints, and semantic models that enable AI to generate infinite interface variations on demand.

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